People Conform to Systems. Bitcoin Tech Talk #258

I had a really interesting conversation with some people the other day about something I really know very little about: dating apps. Dating apps are a phenomenon that got popular after I got married, so it wasn’t something I paid much attention to. I did hear some complaints of single friends, but I haven’t really paid them much mind, raising kids and all.

What was curious about this conversation was how the young men described it. They saw dating apps as nothing less than the destruction of their generation. It led me to ask about what was going on and they described some startling realities of the apps themselves. The apps essentially incentivize really terrible behavior from both men and women. Flaking, ghosting and cheating are extremely common and the apps are generally not designed for making people happy as much as they are designed to get lots of people spending money on the app.